


monsters don't lurk under your bed (they're right on top of you on it)

by red_handedjill



Category: The Thundermans
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholism, F/M, Incest, Intentional Objectification, Lots of Symbolism, Mild torture, Modern Vaguely Spring Awakening AU, Platonic Female/Female Relationship, Slut Shaming, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_handedjill/pseuds/red_handedjill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story lining the bruises on her heart tell of the boy who became her wounds. — thundercest</p>
            </blockquote>





	monsters don't lurk under your bed (they're right on top of you on it)

Dating your brother is not conventional.

(and sometimes she thinks all the problems aren't worth it — he drinks too much and he fights too much and the ugly monster keeps rearing its head.)

Dating someone you really, really, really  _love_  is fine.

(but he makes it so hard to love him sometimes if the bruises lining her wrists and the black eye from the one little mistake he makes where he throws things say anything.)

Dating your twin is illegal when she thinks about it.

(it's okay because she loves him with all her heart and he doesn't mean to hurt her, he just gets too drunk and he only does that because loving her hurts.)

She always tells herself it's okay because he loves her too.

(she only ever doubts it in the wee hours of the morning when she wakes up with his hand on her mouth and his other forcing her clothes off and no stench of liquor on him.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

It's another day of stolen kisses catching the side of her lips and him holding her wrist a little too hard  _on accident._  As long as mama and daddy don't notice any of the lingering eyes burning her flesh down they're in the clear and everything is okay. Of course everything is okay.

Their relationship can never go public and he hurts her when she considers ending it but everything is okay. She loves Max and Max loves her.

(nobody needs to know that he bruises her skin and her heart.)

"Phoebe," he whispers against her ear, smirking at her. Her heart melts too much to care that his hand is crushing every bone in hers.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Brothers and sisters are supposed to fight so it's okay that he screams at her in the bathroom for things she didn't do. Maybe she did do them and she just didn't know it.

("stop fucking flirting with him, you whore!")

She knows it's only because he loves her. Anyways, it's  _so romantic_  that he takes her on the bathroom counter in this spontaneous fit of rage and passion.

(phoebe tries to forget that she doesn't really want to fuck in the school bathroom.)

They only fight this badly because he's started drinking and because he's a villain and she's a hero. It's romantic. She swears it's romantic.

She swears it through the pain in-between her hips and the fingers hurting her skin, "star-crossed, like Romeo and Juliet."

So what that he doesn't listen to her and just fucks harder?

(no, she's not making excuses for him.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Villains are supposed to be hard and cold and callous and loving is not a part of their nature. That makes her just about the luckiest girl in the world since he loves her. He loves her so fucking much.

She knows that because sometimes it's okay and they aren't a disaster.

Right now is okay. His arm is around her shoulders and her head is on his shoulder and she can hear their hearts thumping together over the movie. It's not a conventional romantic date movie because twins don't get that — it's  _Mad Max Fury Road_ and it's a little bit sickening actually.

(those girls are supposed to be abused but isn't that possessive jealousy how max feels?)

He feeds her a bit of popcorn with a soft smile just for her and she melts into his lips. It tastes like butter and salt and hot dogs and ketchup and mustard with an aftertaste of Coke but she loves it.

They're so, so happy when it's like this so they must be okay.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Cherry finds out and he hits her for telling but she know she deserves it. It's her fault that their kisses slipped through her lips. At least Cherry is supporting and everything she needs to have.

(boyfriends are supposed to be supporting too.)

It's fine. It's fine.  _itsfineitsfineitsfineitsfineitsfineitsfineitsfineitsfineits_ —

She screams when he throws her down. She screams when he slams himself inside her. She screams and she screams and he slaps her and chokes her and scrapes her skin to the blood for it.

Phoebe is silent through the rest of his fucking.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

He is sweet the next day so she knows it really is fine that sometimes he  _rightfully_  punishes her for her wrongdoings. Cherry smiles giddily as they hold hands under the lunch table and aws at how cute they are. Max is smirking so she remembers to start breathing again.

This means he's forgiven her for telling after all. She'll just be more careful from now on. That's all she has to do, right?

(don't wince, don't wince, don't wince.)

His grip on her hand is just a little bit too tight and she thinks she's bruising again but she can't get away from her. (fuck. no. she doesn't want to escape. it's an accident.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Everything is fine for another two months of hidden kisses and waking up to his lips all over her neck and the occasional bruised wrist. He's not even drinking during any of it.

Her best friend supports them no matter what and she doesn't feel like she's drowning under the weight of him.

(are relationships supposed to have these moments of relief?)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

The two months are up and everything is  _not okay_  because she fucked up again and now she's dying. He carves into her skin with the broken glass from the vase he threw at her. She reminds herself that she's lucky she ducked as she fights the urge to scream because she knows now that will make it  _worse._

Screaming  _always_  makes it worse. Screaming means he hurts her more. Screaming means someone finds them. Screaming means someone finds out. Screaming means they're ripped apart. Screaming means no more  _MaxandPhoebeforever._

(maybe screaming means someone will fucking stop him.)

Phoebe bites her tongue so hard it bleeds because she is better than that. It only hurts a little bit anyways. She's not even crying — it's not bad enough to scream about.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Her brother touched her (and touched her and touched her and touched her even when she didn't want it) and she let him. Her brother loved her and she let him. That is her story.

(some days it will be her story when the news reports blare and her missing picture is on every door.)

She is okay with that. (she has to be okay with that.) It is love. (it must be love.) That will always be her story. (he made it her story.)

Sometimes she worries he has twisted her into his plaything and forced her story. Then he loves her right and everything is okay.

Everything else goes away when he loves her right.

(but why are there still bruises on her wrists and lips and heart?)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

She lets the bruises on her wrists and the scar under her collar bone be found. It's an accident but Max would yell at her for letting it happen so it must be that she let it happen.

("you fucking idiot! if you weren't such a slut she wouldn't have found them! are you fucking trying to get us broken up!?")

"Is he hurting you, Phoebe?" She winces because Cherry isn't as dumb as she hoped. Max is going to kill her now and her story will be everywhere and her body nowhere.

(the answer is yes and now someone can see it in her eyes.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Angry does not do what he is justice when Cherry confronts him about it. He hits Phoebe (don't cry, don't cry, don't cry) and Cherry has to drag him off of her in some fit of adrenaline.

"You're fucking abusive!" She screams and, for the first time, Phoebe understands how much her best friend loves her.

(and she thinks that maybe Max  _doesn't_  love her right.)

She blacks out until it's all over.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

She tells Cherry they've broken up but they haven't and he's still whispering into every inch of her burning skin and bruising her wrists. Her best friend is so, so happy and hugs her tight but not so tight that she feels him crushing her again.

Then he fucks her on the bathroom counter again and her body is weighted, her heart weightless.

(maybe this isn't love.)

Phoebe can't tell if she or her body is the guilty one now.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

When he blinds the prying world to them and their guilty secrets, she lets herself be molded against him and into him. She moves his hand to her breast to say yes because she has to let him love her. She does not wish to scream because she has let herself love him.

She wants every square inch of this and every piece of this. She lets this pain and suffering be love. She tells herself it's all okay but she can only wish she was talking about loving her brother and letting him love her.

(she wonders if this suffering is scripted in her bible but he won't let her look.)

"I love you," he breathes into her, "I love you so fucking much."

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

"You can't keep making excuses for him, Phoebe! It's not healthy." Cherry doesn't yell. Cherry isn't mad at her. Cherry doesn't hurt her. Cherry isn't Max.

(she wishes she could stop making excuses for him too.)

Instead she ignores her best friend's warnings and she lets herself love him. She doesn't know if she cares that it might cost her her life anymore.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Later, when he's on top of her, loving her, she wonders if maybe her mama didn't teach her how to love right. She thinks that maybe if her mama had taught her how to handle things — anything besides being a hero — it would be different.

("shut the fuck up, phoebe, i'm trying to love you.")

On second thought, is it really mama's fault she came out so bad?

(maybe she's just sad that he can't love right.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Maybe she always knew he would bruise her and be her wounds — she has shitty poetry about how she thought she was going to be bruised, after all. Maybe she hasn't been able to grab onto his world enough to really love him.

Does it matter anymore? She heard the words of how he wanted her and she consumed them with every bit of her being. He listened to the words of her body and she let him play with her outside of his fantasies.

(she knows that cherry is right about everything but it's too late.)

She loves him and he loves her.

They just don't love each other right and she can't blame mama or daddy for that.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

He chokes her again and Cherry's begs and pleads to leave him finally hit her as hard as he has. She can't stay with someone who doesn't know how to love.

(and he loves her this way on purpose.)

"Let go," she tells him. He can see it her wantings that she does not mean her throat or her bruises or her body at all. He listens to the sounds of her heart too closely to not know.

"I won't let go." She can hear that a part of him is begging but she doesn't care.

"Let go," she repeats, her voice cracking.

"We're meant to carry those we love with us forever, Phoebe," he pleads.

(but if this is love then love is too sick for her to want.)

He does not listen to her commands over the sound of his own wantings and she hates him so fucking much for that. He's not just a stupid boy who wants to be a villain and drinks too much. He's an abusive piece of shit and she hates that she has let him love her and let herself love him.

"You don't know how to love," she sobs, "it's not who you are and you fucking can't."

He wraps his arms around her being and locks her into him. She screams this time. She screams and sobs and lets every tear break free. "I love you, I can love you better," he cries, "I need you."

"You bruise me! You wound me! That's not love, Max!" She screams. He won't let her go.

"I know you, I love you, who else will love you?" This is not love, she tells herself, he is not warmth or safety.

"Let go, Max!" Phoebe screams until someone comes because she knows that he will never let go.

(her vision is too blurred to really know but something tells her it is cherry.)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — (cut here)

Cherry asks her over and over if she is okay when they both know she is not okay and she never will be okay.

"Do you believe there is love in heaven?" She whispers too quiet to hear.

(she does not know if she believes there is love on earth.)


End file.
